Dean's Update 2023-06

June 27, 2023

The Importance of Research at MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine

Research is an integral part of medical school. Here at the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MSUCOM), we place great importance on research as we train future physicians, physician-scientists and physician assistants. It's an important part of being a contemporary clinician – balancing care for patients with research and assessment, and we hope to instill the foundational elements for conducting and analyzing research as part of every MSUCOM student’s holistic education. These research tools will be used in identifying improvements in patient care and discovering enhancements in treatment or cures and eradication of diseases. Indeed, MSU’s College of Osteopathic is the leader for both supporting and exemplifying the importance of research amongst all osteopathic medical schools nationwide.

Research Funding

As part of Michigan State University – one of the top 100 research universities in the world and a member of the American Association of Universities (AAU) since 1964 – the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine is home to a number of faculty members who are top researchers in their fields, resulting in thousands of publications, abstracts, posters and presentations, as well as earning funding from numerous organizations, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) and many other corporate and private sources of research funding. For example, just in NIH funding alone, the college’s faculty has secured about $37 million between fiscal years 2019-2021, according to information from the MSU Office of Planning and Budget.

College Research Funding Support

In addition to research funding from these external sources, the college in the past few years established the Dell Postdoctoral Collaboration Fellowships to provide up to $50,000 for a single year of support to early career postdoctoral investigators conducting collaborative research between MSUCOM faculty and other MSU researchers, and the SpartanDO Research Accelerator program that promotes MSUCOM student inclusion in research by providing a funding incentive for mentors and faculty to work with medical students on elective research projects.

Added to this, in 2022, I established the Dean’s Research Facilitation Awards program to support the research efforts of our faculty in yet another way. In May, we shared these awards with multiple faculty members across multiple departments for a second year, totaling nearly $179,000. This program was established to provide research faculty additional discretionary funds, for example, to support their existing projects, or provide “seed” funds for their next research endeavor.

"The Dean's Research Facilitation Awards provides us with flexible funds to pursue new research avenues that can lead to more significant external funds,” said Chris Waters, Ph.D., professor in the MSU Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. “This award will be used to fund our translational research developing novel antimicrobials and cancer immunotherapies."

Alla Sikorskii, Ph.D., M.S., faculty in the MSU Department of Psychiatry, uses these research dollars to supplement research funds from other sources, including NIH.

“I am very grateful for the Dean’s Research Facilitation Awards. With these funds, I am able to execute my NIH-funded research projects without sacrificing their scope and quality in face of budget cuts that NIH has been applying,” she explained.

Neera Tewari-Singh, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, said the Dean’s Research Facilitation Award is encouraging and meaningful to her because it shows appreciation for her research efforts. The award will be useful for “preliminary data generation for further grant funding and collaborative efforts or paying students for their scientific training,” she said, adding that it will also be helpful for data analyses for publications and grant applications.

Office of Research and D.O.-Ph.D. Program

The Office for Research in the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, under the direction of Associate Dean for Research John Goudreau, D.O., Ph.D., encourages and supports biomedical research at the college’s three sites and throughout the college’s Statewide Campus System (SCS) for graduate medical education. Serving also as the hub of research facilitation between our faculty and other research faculty throughout all colleges at MSU, the office assists college-affiliated physicians and scientists and our medical students with research efforts, as well as administers the college’s D.O.-Ph.D. program.

As you know and can see from the work we are doing, the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine not only embraces research, but encourages it. In fact, the college’s Research and Scholarly Activities Present State and Strategic Initiatives are founded upon the long-standing investment the college has made and continues to make in advancing the research and scholarly activities of our faculty and students, and all of this is tied to our Strategic Plan.

Frankly, research is in our DNA (and as a clinical-geneticist, I can confirm this!). With the nation’s oldest D.O.-Ph.D. program started in 1979, the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine has long invested in future physician-scientists who can identify health problems as physicians, research those problems using their scientific training and apply those research discoveries in the clinic to help improve patient outcomes. In addition, this program prepares physician-scientists for roles in academe, leading osteopathic medical education and research in higher education.

As you may know, I am a D.O.-Ph.D. graduate and researcher from the college. As physician-scientists, we see the patient experience firsthand, and in our research, we seek discoveries that can advance patient care. While not all research has the results we hope for, we always learn more and can build on that knowledge as we strive to bring comfort and even cures to our patients. I must also note that the osteopathic tenets instilled upon all students in the college also fosters unique insights that not only guide us to preserve best health and treating disease but can also power cutting-edge research. In many ways, it is my opinion that some of the most perplexing problems in medicine today may ONLY be conquered by utilizing a holistic approach to research, rather than a strictly reductionist approach. Indeed, systems-based approaches, team-based approaches and high-throughput methods for data acquisition are exactly that, holistic approaches to solving complex research problems.

Student Research Initiatives

In support of student research, in May we kicked off our first Annual MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine Research Day with more than 260 medical trainees participating in the event hosted by the MSUCOM SCS and the Research, Innovation and Scholarly Engagement (RISE) team. The event provided a platform for a diverse group of researchers – fellows, postdocs, residents, OMS, D.O.-Ph.D. students, graduate students and undergraduate students – representing 33 different institutions affiliated with MSUCOM. It was a great day for researchers who were able to share their work while also learning from others. A panel of 49 judges reviewed the presentations and top presenters also earned cash awards for their research work.

As we look around the college, we recognize the incredible work our faculty are doing, not only in their own research, but also including students in research. For example, a program developed by Carolina Restini, Ph.D., Pharm.D., and associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, works with the college and our partners creating pathways for students to participate in research and publish their findings through partnerships and individual opportunities for students to join other work. One of those partnerships is with McLaren Health Care, which has opened research spots for MSUCOM second-year medical students.

We look forward to the positive outcomes research brings to medicine and health care, and ultimately to our patients. As a college, we look forward as both clinicians and researchers to supporting our patients and communities, and finding new ways, through research, to accomplish that goal.

Dean Andrea Amalfitano, D.O., Ph.D.